Joe Frank :: Best of Monologues – Vol 1

Product Description

Monologue selections from shows created between 1996-2012. Absurd, serious, ironic and humorous. Total run time: 1 hour 9 minutes

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Best of Monologues – 1 PDF

1) It Gives you Pause – from Journal (1997) 5:31
Monologue about our planet, galaxy, universe measured against human beings’ love, suffering, needs. Perspective from an airplane looking down at people. “Everything in life is ephemeral.”

2) Big Bang: from The Nature of Things (2000) 4:32
The Big Bang theory examined; human beings arrive; evolution from the sea.
(This also appears in Karma Part 6)

3) Meaning: from Lost Soul (1996) 5:38
What happens when there is an overflow of meaning? Joe’s desire to be life-affirming. “If we have lost our health, it only means we will regain it.”

4) Dial without Hands: from Predator (1999) 7:54
Reflections on the definition of the past, Hegel, thoughts, ideas, and life. Life and its ambiguities. “Uncertainty should be the true provenance of thought.”

5) Internal Debate: from Obsessions (1996) 6:43
“Why choose darkness when there is light?” “It is only when we say, “yes,” that we become truly human. No. That’s nonsense. Because on the contrary, it is our ability to say, “no,” which places us above animals.” Discussion of progress over happiness.

6) Mom: from At Last (2000) 4:40
Joe takes his mother to a military base for a job interview. No one pays attention to her so she leaves the room. Joe finds her crying in corridor where she begins crawling on her hands and knees to Joe. They argue. The officers gather around her. Joe imagines they are all thinking about how beautiful she is and how they want to make love to her.

7) You Can’t say “Cock”: from Bad Karma (2000) 1:36
KCRW station manager calls Joe requesting he not use terminology that suggests graphic sex as he did in a recent show. It is not permissible. She marvels that no one has called in to complain.

8) Vacation: from Pledge Drive August 13, 2000 3:27
Picturing a sweepstakes winner on a vacation in a bungalow on a beach. Describes the vacationer’s activities during the day.

9) Unseemly Mess: from Old Man (KCRW’S Unfictional Free download) (2012) 6:02
Musings on death. How does death affect a mortician’s worldview? Fantasy about living on the beach as a surfer and musician. Memory and age. List of the multiple ways people die.

10) Death Is . . . (Extended Version) from On the Edge Remix (1996) 3:35
Various descriptions and angles on death and scenarios that lead to it. “Death is the last thing you’ll ever do.” An extended version of “Poem to the Dead” in the show Old Man.

11) How Does the Heart Respond: from Karma Part 6 (2000) 5:39
Features Jack Kornfield speaking about the heart. Joe talks about love and popular songs always being about love. “You don’t hear songs about finance: “Berman, the Merger King.”

12) There Must be a Reason: from Time’s Arrow (2004) 3:54
Joe’s malaise and thoughts of suicide. “Evolution has not been kind to us. …We think too much…. We feel too much. There must be something.” How do we relate to characters in the Bible?

13) Now to Say Goodnight: from No Angel (1999) 4:13
Human beings share the same heritage, expectations, fate. Joe recalls when he tried to flee from death.

14) A Round of Applause: from The Other Side (1997) 5:19
An enthusiastic emcee thanks audience and closes out the show with fantastical stories.